Mature autonomous vehicle systems, particularly Waymo's, are demonstrably and significantly safer than human drivers, a fact supported by extensive real-world data showing dramatic reductions in injuries and crashes.
Corporate transparency is non-negotiable for AV companies; failure to honestly report incidents, as exemplified by Cruise LLC, leads to regulatory and legal retribution, loss of public trust, and corporate collapse.
The public and regulators hold new technologies to an unfair standard of perfection, a psychological bias that obstructs the adoption of systems that are safer than the human-driven status quo.
The healthcare industry's shift towards transparency—such as disclosing medical errors and publicizing patient experience data—provides a proven roadmap for the AV industry to improve safety and build public confidence.
Current federal regulations for AV crash reporting are inadequate because they lack requirements for essential context like total miles driven, which prevents accurate safety comparisons and holds the industry back.
1974
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) mandated a seatbelt interlock device, which Slotkin uses as an early example of a safety technology rejected by public backlash.
Within a year of 1974
The U.S. Congress outlawed the mandatory seatbelt interlock device, highlighting a historical precedent for public resistance to mandated safety technology.
2001
The University of Michigan's health system implemented a policy of proactively disclosing its own medical errors, which Slotkin presents as a successful model for transparency.
2008
Medicare began publicly reporting patient experience data from U.S. hospitals, marking a shift towards transparency that Slotkin advocates for in other industries.
2012
Medicare began tying hospital payment levels to performance on patient experience surveys, creating a financial incentive for transparency and quality of care.
October 2023
A Cruise LLC autonomous vehicle dragged a pedestrian, triggering a cascade of events including regulatory suspension, federal charges, and a major corporate restructuring, which Slotkin details as a cautionary tale.
▶The Double Standard: Demanding Machine Perfection Amidst Human Carnage
Dr. Slotkin argues that society irrationally demands perfection from autonomous systems while accepting a high rate of human-caused accidents and errors. He uses historical examples, like the backlash against seatbelt interlocks, and the intense scrutiny of AV incidents to illustrate how fear of new technology can overshadow its data-proven safety benefits compared to the status quo.
For investors and analysts, this highlights that the primary barrier to AV adoption may be psychological and political, not purely technological, suggesting that companies' public relations and policy navigation strategies are as critical as their engineering.
▶Corporate Transparency as a Survival Imperative
The divergent fates of Waymo and Cruise are presented as a case study in the importance of corporate transparency. Waymo's practice of publicly sharing detailed safety data is contrasted with Cruise's attempt to conceal the full details of a severe accident, which led to DOJ charges, regulatory suspension, and a corporate meltdown.
A company's protocol for data transparency and crisis communication is a significant, non-financial risk factor that can directly impact its operational viability and market access.
▶Parallels in Safety and Trust: Healthcare and Autonomous VehiclesJul 2026
Slotkin draws explicit connections between improving safety in healthcare and in autonomous transportation. He cites the University of Michigan health system's policy of disclosing medical errors—which led to fewer lawsuits—and Medicare's use of patient experience data as models the AV industry should emulate to build public trust and improve performance.
Analysts can gain an edge by applying frameworks from other highly regulated, safety-critical industries like healthcare to evaluate risk management and public trust strategies in the emerging tech sector.
▶Data-Driven Validation of Autonomous Vehicle SafetyJul 2026
A central theme is the use of extensive, verifiable data to prove the safety case for autonomous vehicles. Slotkin repeatedly cites Waymo's statistics—over 220 million miles driven, with 94% fewer serious injury crashes and significant reductions in pedestrian, cyclist, and intersection incidents compared to human drivers—as the definitive argument for the technology's superiority.
For investors, the key differentiator among AV companies is not just the number of miles driven, but the quality, accessibility, and comparative analysis of their safety data, making it a crucial metric for due diligence.